War is hell.
This is a fact.
There is no way to prettify the devastation, the human toll, the destruction, the fear, the chaos, the death.
And when you are fighting an enemy with a penchant for firing from mosques, hospitals, schools and various other civilian or residential centers, the chances of a higher-than-normal human toll is unavoidable.
This is the reality on the ground in Gaza.
The human toll has been staggering as Israel seeks to beat back Hamas, which has felt free to launch missiles into the heartland of the Jewish State because, let's be real, it cannot accept the fact of Israel's existence and is determined to keep its campaign alive until there is no one left to wage it.
How flipping tragic for the people of Gaza that in the years since Israel's disengagement, terrorist tunnels have been built instead of a social infrastructure. How pathetic that instead of seizing the opportunity to better itself, Gaza has remained a cesspool.
To quote Dov Rosenblatt of Blue Fringe, who took the megaphone at the pro-Israel rally in NYC this past Tuesday: Free Palestine!
From Hamas.
Let the world agree that the Palestinian people are among the most victimized people today.
By their own lawfully elected leaders.
This mantra must be repeated on the world stage, over and over again.
To the animals who beat up a 14-year-old Jewish girl in Paris.
To Hugo Chavez who kicked the Israeli ambassador out of Venezuela.
To the Palestinians in Denmark who shot Israelis at a mall.
To Annie Lennox of the Eurythmics, publicly denouncing Israel at a rally in London.
To Jon Stewart, who revealed himself to be such a whore for cool-lefty-edgy-people-approval that he wove an enraged and rather demented rant against Israel into his shtick on Monday night's episode of The Daily Show.
To the Vatican official -- and all the other ahistorical morons -- who insist on making the Israel=Nazi State or Gaza=Concentration Camp analogy.
To all people who find it unthinkable that Jews might exert military might in self-defense.
The situation is complex and nuanced and Israel is surely not above legitimate criticism.
In fact, the best essay I have read on the difficulty of understanding this war appears today on the Huffington Post. Written by Marty Kaplan, Eyeless in Gaza explores all sides of the arguments against and for Israel. Kaplan is the head of the Norman Lear Center at USC's Annenberg School. Read it by clicking on this link: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/marty-kaplan/eyeless-in-gaza_b_155204.html.
However, at the heart of the heated case against Israel, the dangerous rage against this country's military action, is the belief that Jews do not have the right to defend themselves.
That there is some kind of historical agreement we are breaking by becoming soldiers and officers and commanders and intelligence experts and military strategists.
And that Jews around the world should be punished, in an up close and personal way, for this irritating, galling new policy.
Of all the manifestations of anti-Zionistic rage, the one I find most inexplicable yet predictable, is the equation of Israel with Nazism and now, Gaza with Auschwitz.
This has become a new "thing" among those who love to hate Israel and one hears the obscene analogy trotted out all the time. Once shocking, it is now completely unoriginal and overused, so five minutes ago.
I will not waste an inch of cyberspace explaining why this analogy is not only factually inaccurate and ridiculous but morally reprehensible and hypocritical.
Anyone who truly cares about the humanitarian crisis in Gaza, perpetrated by Hamas, should gather in the streets of the world's capital cities, shouting the words Free Palestine.
From Hamas.
2 comments:
you are "she-ra" the princess of
"princess of power," in that you are thinking like a cartoon character. sorry you can't take the time to explain history. without you offering this, no one would ever know. thank you. israel has no one to blame now but itself. and that makes me so sad.
This is a great article, thank you.
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